Does anyone want to share information they have on their Leflore ancestors?

I’ve done a bit of research but I’d love to share!

Halito! Yesterday I was invited to NAHM celebrations at both the US Coast Guard Headquarters and The Pentagon. To my knowledge, all branches now are recognizing wearing regalia in uniform for ceremonial purposes, like this celebration or advancements/promotions and such. I’m part of a working group in the Coast Guard working to have regalia permanently added to the religious accommodations manual, and a CG-wide affinity group for Natives, which currently does not have one. Just wanted to share some of the amazing progress we are making in the military! B

When you search for the “Choctaw symbol for happiness” this symbol often comes up.

I want to make sure this is accurate.

I want to include it as a decoration for a table I’m making

My 10 year old son is Choctaw from his father’s side. He is very proud to be Choctaw. He likes to hear stories about his family and likes to learn Choctaw words.

He was doing a project in school today and had to have a name for it. He used Choctaw in the name. (He used the actual word Choctaw) Some classmates told him he was spelling the name wrong. When he told them it was Choctaw they replied that wasn’t real word. He told them he was Choctaw but they didn’t believe him. He came home upset about it because he said no one has ever heard of the Choctaw People. I talked it through with him. He is okay and understands those classmates just need to be educated.

I already plan on talking with the teacher. I looked on the Choctaw Nation website to see if they had any kid printouts, but didn’t find anything. I was hoping I could provide something to the teacher to give to the class. Any ideas?

Ok, so… to begin w, I’m 39F and I was born and raised in Fort Worth. I’m white as the driven snow w reddish hair and green eyes bc my mom is half Irish and English. My entire life, I was told that I was descended from Chief Moshulatubbee through my paternal grandmother’s father’s father. The story he’d always told was as follows:

He was born and raised in the Choctaw tribe. When he was a young boy(probably 10-13 I’d guess) his family was murdered. He took his little sister and ran in the night to escape, but watched from afar as their homes were razed and family members massacred. After this, he ran w his sister for quite sometime until they found a town where a man and woman took them in and took care of them. They were “white passing” children, so the couple told them to never tell anyone that they were natives or else they’d likely suffer the same fate as their family. Therefore, he never registered and never let his sister register, out of fear of retaliation or something. He grew up, passing as white the whole time, and went on to have a family. He’d tell his kids the stories, but would remind them to keep it to themselves. They, of course, told their own kids the legends. My grandmother grew up and did so much research and digging. She was able to take some of the names that her grandfather had told her and her dad and link them to actual Choctaw members. She was then able to make the link to Moshulatubbee. She attended a few Pow-wows and truly delved into her heritage. She was so proud and reverent of our family history. That made me feel proud as well! My entire life she called me her little Princess and told me it was bc we were decendents of a great Chief!

Side note: regarding my great grandfather—One of his earliest memories was of himself hiding behind rocks and trees along a river in Arkansas, while he watched as his tribesmen killed Spaniards who’d stolen gold from churches and all over. They the took that gold and buried it, and supposedly placed a curse on it. He never would tell anyone where he saw it.

FFWD to 2021. I took a 23 & Me test for health info and to do more building of the family tree. Imagine my shock when the results came back saying I was 100% white. Strictly Irish, English and some Pennsylvania Dutch. Wtf??? How is that possible?? I reached out to my 2nd cousin (g-ma’s sister’s daughter) and asked about her results. She had the same as me! No Choctaw/indigenous blood whatsoever, but we were still genetically linked (meaning my dad is definitely my dad). I remembered reading about how some tribes would sometimes adopt the children of slain enemies and raise them as their own or have them as servants/slaves at times.

W that info, I’m wondering if my great grandfather could have been taken after his bio family was killed, and raised along side either a bio or stolen sister. All of this now leaves me w this huge hole in my heart. My grandmother grew up w these stories. The lore. So did I. I don’t believe he would have lied, especially since he truly did seem worried about it all. But where does that leave me? I grew up so proud of the fact that I was 1/16 Choctaw, wearing traditional patterns that my grandmother wove and beaded. But now it feels like I’m a faker or trying to claim a heritage that isn’t mine. But I was raised w it. If I’m right about how he came to be in the tribe, would that mean I’ve lived a culturally appropriated life until I found out? It’s not like I walked around in Choctaw garb or anything, never went to any Pow-wows and I’ve never tried to make a claim to money or land or anything. I’ve just always been so proud of my believed heritage. I guess I’m just feeling really lost bc the heritage I believed was mine is no longer mine and I feel like I’m starting over from scratch w literally no info to go off of. My dad is dead and my brothers refuse to have DNA tests done to be able to better follow our lineage. I guess I don’t know what I’m looking for here. I’m just culturally lost now that this is no longer mine. But it is bc it’s how he was raised and how he raised his kids, but it’s not, bc he was 100% white. Does any of this make any sense, or am I just coming off as another white person wanting other people’s culture for myself?

Halito Cousins! Tomorrow is Rock Your Mocs. What style of mocs do y'all rock? Are pucker toes more traditional? I wear a generic moccasin to celebrate the day but was wondering what might be more culturally specific for us.

Greetings,

I have a question about enrollment in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

The long-short: My dad was born in 1956 to a full blood Choctaw woman (his father was white), I think in Oklahoma City. For most of his life that’s all he knew. Last year, he and I did Ancestry tests (I know this doesn’t help in enrollment by itself), but we discovered his older half sisters (they all share the same mother, while fathers’ are different). They are both members of the Choctaw Nation of Louisiana. His sister’s remember seeing him as an infant before he was given up for adoption in early 1957. The adoption was handled by a Catholic Church in OK City (I think St. Francis of Assisi). My understanding (please correct me if I’m wrong) is that he would need to provide official adoption documentation and ancestors that appear on the Dawes Roll in order to join. After talking with sisters, we know who his mother is, her parents and both sets of her grandparents. I’ve found her parents and grandparents on the Dawes Roll. But with OK having closed adoptions, is there any way to get his official adoption documents?

Hálito! I am an enrolled member and have my CDIB card. I was enrolled as a baby through my mom so I am sure the process has changed in the last nearly 40 years. I am wanting to enroll my son, and have the forms required for that. While reviewing I do see that the second item is a birth certificate for each person in the lineage. I am wanting to make sure that means I would need my child’s, mine, my moms, my grandparents, and my great grandmother’s birth certificates? Or is it different as he is my child and I am an enrolled member with my CDIB? I am asking here first because I always feel like a bother calling to ask questions lol. Yakoke Fehna Hoke!!

Do you have to have a blood test or simply have records going back far enough?

Do you believe the "by blood" restrictions in the Constitution should be amended to allow full tribal enrollment for all Choctaw Dawes Rolls descendants?

Why are you in favor of or against their enrollment?

halito!

i am an 18 y/o (oklahoma) choctaw member. i have been wanting to get into traditional dancing and discussing heritage for a while. unfortunately i am certifiably bad at talking to people and have no idea how to do this, especially since i live in tx.

if any of y’all have any advice, especially if you or someone you know dances, i would seriously appreciate it.

i am currently reaching out to a cousin for help on this matter, but i figured i might as well ask the subreddit. o7

(also i am writing this on my way leaving the choctaw powwow lmao. we could say i was reinspired)

im 14, im very white but i have choctaw descent on my moms side, my aunt and great grandmother(?) are officially registered. I have a super small family so i cant really try to connect with any of my family. I was wondering if anyone has any tips or resources so i can learn some more abt the tribe 😽

I need a good middle name for my son was thinking of Kostini can anyone confirm the meaning of this word ?

Good morning! My wife has been estranged from her father and his side of the family for a number of private reasons since she was 2.

Recently, she reconnected with an older sister and found out in the process that her uncle and cousin are enrolled Choctaw.

Her uncle recently passed away, and connecting the with cousin is complicated. Is there a means through tribal resources to leverage whatever ancestry documentation that was done without contact with them? Since the uncle was able to prove ancestry, we know his full brother, my wife’s dad, would have been able to use the same documentation. And we are hoping that would mean my wife would only need to show proof of her dad and uncle.

Because my wife has not had this history for the past 4 decades, she’s eager explore and reconnect with this part of her history.

Hey friends, I’m enrolled through my father’s side, most of his family is from the Arkansas area. I grew up in Colorado, and never really had the opportunity to learn or understand more about this part of my heritage. I’ve now got 4 kids of my own, and over the last few years I’ve had a growing interest in investing in learning and knowing more about our Choctaw heritage. I’m having a hard time knowing where to start. We’re looking at enrolling in the online language programs, but are there other good resources to better understand and learn? Ideally from our perspective not an outsider’s perspective?

halito! i was curious if there was any equivalent to (she/her) as a gender identifier in the Choctaw language. the company i work at has our pronouns listed with our names, and encourage us to list them in other languages that we identify with - being Choctaw myself, i’d like to list my pronouns in the language, but i’ve been reading that there are no specific pronouns, as in the sentence structure a pronoun as a subject market is often omitted altogether. does anyone have knowledge on another form of pronoun that might be appropriate for this case? thanks!

Halito,

I found a list of Choctaw families living in the Choctaw Nation. Can anybody tell me if the name Iyshteya is male or female? No alternate spelling is offered. I am not fluent in Choctaw so I apologize in advance.

Yakoke!

Halito! I’m (Oklahoma) Choctaw through both my father’s father and my mother’s mother (though only my grandpa and some cousins are enrolled). I’ve always known this, but never gave it too much thought because my grandparents didn’t have much to pass on and we weren’t really connected to extended family or the community.

Anyway, without getting too far into it I recently had a weird breakthrough where I realized everything I could never understand about my family finally made sense through the lens of intergenerational trauma and forced assimilation. So now I’m reconnecting! I’ve been looking more into our history and learning some of the language and listening to Inchunwa (sooooo good). And the more I learn, the more Choctaw I realize I am! It’s kind of amazing.

But like… you can’t really reconnect by yourself! It’s been a lot to process and sadly I’m estranged from my family, so I’m not able to talk to them about it anytime soon. I’m kind of desperate to connect with the Choctaw (/broader Native) community, but don’t know where to start. I’m hoping to make it out to the cultural center in the spring, but I’m far away in Brooklyn for now. (I also have a lot of anxiety about being perceived as some kind of white imposter.)

Are there any Choctaws on here in NYC? Online Choctaw or indigequeer communities I should be participating in? Kind people who want to talk to me? (I’m 33 and transmasc.)

Yakoke!

Me and my mom have been looking into ancestry on all sides, and her dads side always said they were Choctaw and her dad would’ve been “the last one able to enroll”. She didn’t know what that meant but I cross checked old family names with the Dawes and found a few potential matches for the time periods given. The two last names we have a lot of are Barnett and Barr and the places they were born go from Mississippi all the way to Oklahoma and Texas. My questions goes as follows

1: Are there any other resources for figuring out choctaw ancestry?

2: How can we learn about our Choctaw family history in a way that honors our ancestors while also honoring the current day community? We aren’t going to claim our ancestry cause we have no connection to the culture, (and because there’s a lot of milk in this here tea lol) but we would like to learn about things to honor our ancestors as we do w/ all our ancestors. It would also be cool to support the community and connect in someway.

Thanks for reading!

Hi! So one of my great grandmothers was named Mary Jane James. She was full-blood Choctaw, but I can’t find her on the Dawes rolls because she passed before she enrolled and her parents are unknown. Her children are on the rolls though. But this picture is from a book called “Register of Choctaw Indians who have emigrated to their lands west of the Mississippi” and it list her but it also list someone else. I have absolutely no clue who the other person is, I’m guessing a sibling. That’s why I’m asking for help, I can’t make out the name and very little was known about my great grandma Mary because she passed away in her 30s. Please if anyone is able to help decipher the name, it is very appreciated!

Halito! Representing the US Coast Guard and the Chahta Nation of Oklahoma this week at the AISES 2024 STEM conference in San Antonio, TX this week. If anyone else is also attending, please come say hi at the booth!!